or maintenance check, on the aircraft was on 1 June 2006, Sibir said. A C Check, which involves a more thorough overhaul, was carried out 12 July 2005 in Frankfurt. Faulty aircraft In the immediate aftermath, the cause of the crash of Flight 778 was unofficially attributed to some sort of mechanical errors, with the brakes in particular as the most frequently cited and scrutinized by the media. Many news outlets, citing from state-owned Russian media, reported that brake failures had occurred during the landing. According to FlightGlobal, there were speculations among Russian pilots that the crash had been caused by reverser-thrust asymmetry. This was due to the fact that the aircraft landed in the touchdown zone of the runway before it took some distance to slow down, slewing to the right and eventually left the runway concrete portion. Others reported that, according to the survivors, the aircraft had initially slowed down but it suddenly accelerated again. Investigators stated that human error or equipment failure was the likely cause of the crash. The maintenance log revealed that the aircraft had undergone a "C check", the highest level of aircraft maintenance check, on July last year in Germany. The log also showed that, from June to July 2006, a total of 50 defects were reported. Of these defects, 29 were fixed prior to the next flight departure and the repair on the other defects were delayed. Even though the rectification of the defects was postponed, it was actually still in conformance with the minimum equipment list (MEL) of the maintenance manual. Before July 8, another 5 defects were reported, 4 of which were rectified before the flight on 9 July. According to the logbook, one of the defects were the inoperable state of the left thrust reverser and failure on one of the retraction system of the aircraft's flaps. These defects were not fixed until the crash. While these defects were present during the crash, there was no brake failure as the brakes were still in good condition, ruling it out as one of the causes of the crash. The deactivated left thrust reverser was still in accordance with the minimum equipment list and as long as the crew didn't apply thrust on the left engine's reverse lever, as per the correct procedure, then the flight should've landed safely. Other than the deactivated state of the left thrust reverser, there were